1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a window operation interface for graphically revising an electrical constraint set and a method of using the same, and in particular to a window operation interface for graphically revising the electrical constraint set by means of preview revision and batch/individual revision and a method of using the same.
2. Related Art
In recent years, due to the increasing complexity of the design of electronic products, the application and utilization of a convenient and powerful Electronic Design Automation (EDA) system has become increasingly important. At present, Cadence Design System Inc is one of the major suppliers of electronic design technologies, procedure planning and development, with its service and products covering the entire process flow of electronic product design. Among them, Allegro is a platform mainly used for the wiring layout design of the multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB). Allegro has become very popular and is widely used due to its benefits of easy utilization, easy modification, and high compatibility with other related software. Besides, it can be utilized by the user to develop related software according to his/her own actual requirements.
In the past, when designing a system, the hardware engineer is usually required to list the design requirements item-by-item, which are then given to the engineer of the multi-layer PCB for subsequent detailed designs. However, for the complicated electronic system with tens of thousands of wirings and restrictions, it is very difficult if not impossible to achieve complete and flawless management and implementation of the related designs. To overcome this problem and restriction, a build-in Constraint Manager (CM) is provided in Allegro that can be utilized by the design engineer to define the electrical constraint set (EC set) required, according to the relation and constraint between the wiring pattern and the signal wire length. As such, the electrical constraint set thus designed is used to enable the wiring software to automatically realize the wiring design. Thus, not only can time spent on the electronic product design be saved, but the probability of error can also be significantly reduced.
Since the above-mentioned electrical constraint sets may be exported as a distinct file having portable features, each of them can be utilized repeatedly. However, in utilizing the previously defined electrical constraint set, in order to revise some of the attributes or the previously defined names contained therein, the particular electrical constraint set needing revision must be searched through the numerous previously defined electrical constraint sets one-by-one by making use of the Constraint Manager. The electrical constraint set then has to go through the processes of opening, loading in, inspection, and the revision of the file. This process is tedious, time consuming and quite inconvenient for the repeated revisions required in the design of electronic products.